


Altar

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, M/M, Magical Realism, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-24
Updated: 2013-03-24
Packaged: 2017-12-06 07:44:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/733137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything in London lives in the shadow of something else.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Altar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [orithea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orithea/gifts), [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/gifts).



> Ori's prompt: clock; float; shadow; magical realism; not more than 500 words.
> 
> aderyn's prompt: write Sherlock an altar.
> 
> me: lazy writer who fills two [gorgeous] prompts with one fic.
> 
> Not Britpicked, not beta'd. Tread with caution, lovelies.

He moves into a smaller flat. 

He takes his old life with him. A gun and a laptop and a cane he isn’t supposed to need. He brings boxes of left-behind things that he doesn’t have room for, not really, but he stuffs them in the cupboard and leans against the door until it clicks shut and puts a chancel’s worth of space between his mind and his memories. 

He stays out, transparent thing that he is; there is, mercifully, all of London to be a shade in.

Atop the dresser he sets and lights a single candle. More romantic. Never romantic. A ward against the dark.

*

He floats. 

He remembers rooftops, metal stairs slick with rain. The ancient city a breathing puzzle. He wanders it as he would an empty cathedral, pauses to worship in the places Sherlock carved for them. Recalls strides he couldn’t match, collars and curls, cheekbones and blood. 

Everything in London lives in the shadow of something else. 

At night, he sets the candle to burning. Squares himself. Opens the cupboard door.

*

He builds an altar.

The dresser objects multiply. A sliding glass, a certificate he can’t read. A Union Jack, an ashtray. A scarf he can’t bring himself to have laundered. A pack of cigarettes, because John picks his battles with the dead, and a box of nicotine patches, because John picks his battles with the dead. A watch whose stark face reminds him of another’s. 

He adds two turned-out pocketfuls of London, beads rolled astray from its rosaries. Among them: ticket stubs, feathers, a single Oxford shoe, a soggy paperback, four sets of keys, a postcard. Things with which John cannot augur, but no matter. They are not for him.

He spreads Sherlock’s coat on the floor lining-side up. Lights the candle. Runs through the prayers he knows, all of them wrong, and says instead, from the hollow place within him, _Please. Just. Please._

*

He channels wonders. 

Sherlock’s on his side, curled naked on his coat. Asleep. His form conjures shadowboxes, bone relics on black velvet. He breathes. He breathes.

John worships.


End file.
